Packaging material and disposable beakers, cups and cutlery are used nowadays widely and allow that food material may be sold and/or consumed under hygienic conditions. Such disposable materials and objects are highly estimated by the consumers and the retailers, since they may be simply disposed after use and do not have to be washed and cleaned like conventional dishes, glasses or cutlery.
Yet, the widespread and even growing use of such materials result in a mounting amount of litter produced each day. Currently, the plastic waste is either provided to garbage incinerators or accumulates in refuse dumps, with both of the above-mentioned solutions for waste disposal being associated with problems for the environment.
In addition, paper and composite materials are often provided with a coating, such as e.g. polymeric or wax coatings, for increasing the strength of the paper stock or of the basis composite material, imparting water resistance, enhancing gloss, improving barrier properties, etc. These polymeric or wax coatings give however rise to various problems when articles comprising polymeric or wax coatings are subjected to recycling or re-pulping processes.
Thus, there is a need in the art to obviate the above problem and to provide materials, which combine the advantages of currently used plastics material, do not add to environmental pollution and assist to simplify recycling or repulping processes.
Several Biodegradable polymers are already known in the state of the art and comprise materials e.g. on the basis of poly(glycolic acid), poly(epsilon-caprolactone), poly(lactic acid), and polydioxanone. These polymers require however rather complicated production steps and are rather cost-intensive and therefore currently mainly restricted to high value medical applications requiring bioabsorbable materials.
An object of the present invention is thus to provide a composition, which composition is degraded under normal environmental conditions such as composting including humidity and/or water, air, light, and/or soil bacteria in a controlled time period which is significantly shorter than the time period required for the degradation of conventional plastic materials, such as e.g. polyethylene.
Additionally, such a composition should provide properties for the resulting material required for the respective applications, such as e.g. for the production of articles, films, and coatings. Furthermore, such a composition should be producible at low costs and should be appropriate for a production of objets comprising said composition in large numbers. In addition, such a composition should allow to be processed by means of devices and methods of the state of the art. Moreover, such a composition should provide the possibility to be at least partially producible from renewable resources. When applied as a film or a coating on paper or on a composite material, such a composition should provide degradation properties facilitating a re-pulping or recycling of said paper or composite materials.
These and other objectives will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the present invention, which provides a Biodegradable composition, comprising between 40 and 85% by weight of poly(lactic acid), and between 10 and 40% by weight of poly(epsilon caprolactone), each on the basis of the total weight of the Biodegradable composition.